Mood:
energeticI’m a sucker for the coastline of any country and Senegal seems to be no exception. Our plane landed in Dakar, the western-most coastal city of the African country, to refuel, pick up passengers headed to Jo’Burg and drop off these loud-ass kids that were sitting to the right and in front of me. Loud. I always attributed that nagging, ‘fake cry’ that children make in America to the spoiled trappings of three-year-olds who know that it is they who are actually in charge. But it seems that the same annoying dog-like whine that upper-west side rich kids consciously employ when faced with the potential of a dream deferred is familiar territory for the young of Senegal as well. It’s good to know that not only is love universal, so are the manipulations of children.
I looked out of my window trying to process my first glimpse of African soil on this new adventure and one of the first things I noticed was the sky. The sky is as reachable in Senegal as it is in Zimbabwe. There’s a distance that I feel between me and the sky in my tinsel hometown making the adage “reach for the stars” an insurmountable and mockingly ever-present quest. But here, when I look out of the 8 by 12 inch double-insulated cut-out plane window, I feel like I can bridge the gap between us… in fact I am certain of it. I can touch the sky in Africa. The sky is grey and the movement of clouds seems to be more vigorous than I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. In Chicago Malcolm and I went to the Planetarium and saw a demonstration of the movement of the atmosphere, the swirls and curls of clouds and sky-stuff that streak lines across the earth’s surface when looking from the outside in. But today, in the slightly dilapidated Dakar airport, I feel like I’m looking at the same dynamic from the inside out. The sky just moves and hovers over you. Perhaps some of the mysticism of the experience comes from it being just before the sun brings burning clarity to the day, but it’s definitely the stuff of the Gods to look up at this sky.
I actually don’t recall landing in Senegal. I awoke to Danai’s curt, “Salter!” I opened my eyes to see the most handsome sight… a gorgeous Black man in an airport security outfit complete with rubber gloves standing over me. Kinky. Apparently it is custom that the flights that land in the Lehor airport outward-bound to some other (better) destination are inspected for terrorist stuff. The man had been trying to determine if my backpack was a national threat in a decaying student’s disguise. “Nikkole, wake up,” Danai jabbed with her words. “Is this yours?” “Huh?” was the extent of my articulation ability. Life for me these past days has been traveling at unrecorded speeds. Between Malcolm visiting in Chicago, followed by my mother, coupled with age-old college friends, topped by eight-performances a week of lending my humanity to a young, overwhelmed urban youth diagnosed with AIDS, stretched even further by the deadlines of my new freelance writing career…I don’t think I slept much. The fact that we almost missed both planes that got us to the continent also imprinted it’s own kind of emotional exhaustion. When I arrived at LaGuardia airport, I was on-time thanks to Malcolm’s defensive NY driving. We figured that the first leg of my trip was only to Atlanta, so, as per most domestic flights, check-in time is an hour before. WRONG! Or, in the nineties L.A. tradition, I was moded! Since our final destination was Johannesburg, our actual check-in time was two-hours before, so we found ourselves in an inchingly inefficient Delta airlines check-in line an hour late. There was a man pretending to be helpful giving a last call for flight 513. But since he was only able to help people he instinctively felt were worthy of his assistance, Danai and I were left standing in line with the time ticking down and our plane boarding. She left the line to work her magic on another indifferent Delta employee, and through her equal mix of charm and slight desperation, she got us to the ticket window. In all of my wisdom I grabbed her passport, unsuspecting placed onto the counter while Danai was busy trying to decrease her bag’s weight by 3 pounds so as not to have to pay $50 more. I saw it lying there and my imagination fast-forwarded to what I thought was the inevitable outcome of it’s presence: we’d run off to the security check point without her passport because the Delta-lady didn’t really hand it back to her. Not on my watch, I think, and grab it from the counter. I am so my mother’s child. When it looks like all that’s left is for the woman to hand Danai her boarding pass, I rush off to the security check to work my magic so that we can be expedited through the line. That’s right, I have magic too. The woman at the line chirps, “Boarding pass and ID,” and I hand her ‘my’ passport and boarding pass and explain to her that we have to get to a flight asap. She looks at it, she shifts her eyes to look at me, she looks back at it, she aligns the ticket with the picture page and inspects the names for a match, and she looks at me and says, in her broken attempts, “You can- uh, it has to, uh – no you can’t.” No I can’t? WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM! WE HAVE A PLANE TO CATCH AN IT’S BOARDING RIGHT NOW! That’s what I thought. I take the pass and ID back and look at the picture page only to see that what should be the picture of my 19-year-old self is Danai! Then I look around and realize that Danai’s no-where to be seen because she, in a panic, went back to the ticket window looking for her passport. That was scare number one. Scare number two was born of our propensity to chill. We arrived in Atlanta with the false-knowledge of a delayed connecting flight. We assumed we had time to grab a bite, shoot-the-shit, pontificate about the inner-workings of men, and solve the world’s direst human relational problems. Strolling through the terminal looking for a postal mail drop box, Danai in all her brilliance, decides to check the departure boards to see what time our flight was really leaving. Not listed under Johannesburg, a friendly-flyer next to us, seeing our dilemma, informed us that we were going to Jo’Burg via Dakar. We looked up to see the flashing “BOARDING” and realized that our flight wasn’t delayed at all (fucking Delta lady), but was scheduled to leave on time at 4pm. It was 3:50pm. Running, running, running, running, carry-on bags slamming into our backs, running, running, running. What scared me the most was not that we would miss the flight, for I had two things on my side… athletic lungs, and Danai’s sweet-talking good luck. What pained me was the idea that I wouldn’t be able to negotiate for a window seat at the boarding desk since we’d be boarding so late. Imagine: a 16 – 18 hour flight in a middle seat. Oh hell naw, I say. Hell to the naw. Luckily we didn’t have to fight very hard. The flight attendant flippantly said, “Well, I’ll see what I can do, at this the eleventh hour…” “Whatever, man,” I thought. By any means necessary is my cultural heritage. Any means necessary, make it happen.
With that, our journey began. It’s still amazing for me to think that something that I wrote has shown me so much. I mean, I’ve been able to go to Africa twice because of IN THE CONTINUUM… and not just to go, but to be paid to go. This time will be different in that we won’t be touring the show for commercial city venues. We’ll be going to educational institutions and townships, meeting the average-joe’s of the land and getting a better picture of life. I hope to meet life-long friends. I hope to be inspired. I hope to find connection. I tried to find a legitimate reason (a job) that would bring me back sooner than I anticipated. We’ll be done with work on August tenth, and I was hoping to book some gig that would segue me out of the work I’ve been doing for the past two years into something new that validates that I am viable in this business and that someone wants to hire me. But, that didn’t happen, so I know there is a specific reason that Africa is my path for now. There’s something here I am supposed to do. There is something here that I am supposed to witness and digest. I can’t wait to see what it is.